Jamie Cullum admits he thought wife Sophie Dahl was out of his league | Daily Mail Online comments They tied the knot in a secret winter wonderland wedding back in 2010. But Jamie Cullum has admitted that when he first met former model and food writer Sophie Dahl at a charity event, he didn’t think he stood a chance. Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show, which airs on Saturday evening, the 34-year-old said: ‘When I met her for the first time I didn’t think there was even a remote chance in hell, so I played it really cool which actually worked to my advantage. No chance: Jamie Cullum admits on The Jonathan Ross Show that he didn't think he would have a chance with model Sophie Dahl Happy ever after: Jamie and Sophie have been married since 2010 and have two children together Discussing his glamorous wife, who is two years his senior and stands eight inches taller, he added: ‘I just thought there was literally no chance.’ RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share The baby faced star went on to tell the host that despite being in his thirties, many people think he is much younger. ‘People have always thought I was twelve, like really young.

I can walk around with my kids, I could be waving my mortgage around, I could have the keys to my car…I tried to buy Sophie a bottle of wine and I had my kids and I was wearing a suit,’ he said. Baby face: Jamie opens up about being mistaken for someone much younger Showstopper: Jamie closes the show with an energetic performance Opportunities: The musician revealed his career has led him to hang out with big stars like P Diddy ‘I looked about as grown up as I could be and this 18 year old kid was like, ‘No, sorry man, you need ID.’ He did not sell me the bottle of wine,’ he laughed. Jamie and Sophie have two daughters, Lyra, was born on 2 March 2011 and Margot, born on 4 March 2013. The Jazz musician also opened up how his music career has led him to mingle with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Sofa time: (L-R) Jamie Cullum, Naomie Harris, Jonathan Ross, Jennifer Saunders and Paddy McGuinness Leggy: Naomie Harris showed off her legs in a tribal print miniskirt on the show He told Jonathan that he was invited to P Diddy’s house for a party. ‘I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is going to be like an MTV party that I’ve always dreamed about going to,’ so I spent all afternoon looking for the correct pair of trainers to wear,’ he explained. ‘I wore a simple outfit on top,’ Jamie continued: ‘As we were driving up to the house it didn’t look like many people were there. We got there and I realised it was actually a really small dinner party and not only that it was a shoes off house. I had to take my shoes off and I was wearing these horrific Bart Simpson socks with a hole in.’ The singer, who played the show out, is joined by Jennifer Saunders, Naomie Harris and Paddy McGuiness. The Jonathan Ross Show airs on Saturday 4th January at 9.50pm on ITV.

Nervous: Jennifer Saunders revealed she was writing an Absolutely Fabulous movie Hi kick: Paddy McGuinness shows off his karate skills on the show The Official Jamie Cullum Site The Official Jamie Cullum Site Forums Biography With a Grammy, two Golden Globe, two GQ Man of the Year, three Brit, three Sony Radio and numerous other nominations and awards under his belt, Jamie Cullum is a success story around the planet. The most successful UK jazz artist ever, having sold over 10 million albums worldwide. It's through jazz that Jamie first made his mark, with the multi platinum Twentysomething LP, but it is his knowledge and love of all music that has helped propel him onto the world stage. The sensational musician has the ability and versatility to blur musical genres with his unique take on jazz, pop and rock and his success is truly global, taking him from Seoul to Sao Paulo, FujiRock to Glastonbury and from Hamburg to Hollywood where he achieved great acclaim collaborating with Clint Eastwood on the Golden Globe nominated score for Gran Torino. Jamie has not just written for the London West End Stage but also for BBC Television and has presented TV shows on VH-1, Sky and the BBC.

He has hosted several documentaries for BBC Radio’s 4 and 2 featuring such eminent subjects as Blue Note Records, Herbie Hancock, Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones. He currently presents his own award winning weekly prime time show for BBC Radio 2, the highest rated station in Europe and is proud to have been the first DJ to play the new stars of jazz, Gregory Porter and Laura Mvula. Jamie’s radio show has won two New York Radio Awards and the prestigious Gold Sony Radio Award in the UK and is now licensed to stations across the dial. Cullum's career path could have been very different as at the age of twenty one, Jamie was making music in five different guises, eager for any of them to take off. The post Brit Pop band TAXI came closest, with a record deal on the table from RCA. The psychedelia of Red Shift showed hints of his future stage antics as it featured Jamie as the precariously balanced keyboard player standing atop his Fender Rhodes and his heavy metal band High Voltage revealed his breadth of musical interest.

The offer to run the housebound of a pre-X-factor reality show in Germany was the most financially lucrative choice at the time but it was the skill Jamie had honed to pay his way though college that he chose to further exploit and which helped him become the musician we know today. As a jazz pianist on the British function circuit (parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs etc.) Jamie had played over a thousand shows before he graduated. It was the cash from these gigs that paid for his college education, and that also taught him the chops and the skills to engage a (mostly) apathetic audience who didn’t much care who was playing piano in the corner. With money in his pocket from the gigs, and a burgeoning reputation as a great pianist, not just a wedding singer, Jamie recorded an album. Now available on eBay for upwards of $800 a copy, the 500 CD's Jamie pressed of Heard It All Before to sell at gigs gave him a taste of the monies to be earned from recorded music. He reinvested this profit into a new recording, Pointless Nostalgic, this time recorded with seasoned jazz players.

As he was applying the finishing touches to the record, eminent jazz producer Alan Bates, approached Jamie to release the record on his Candid Records (home to classics by Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln and more recently, Stacey Kent). The year was 2002 and with Alan’s backing Jamie embarked on his first ‘proper' gigs, in clubs and festivals, both jazz and rock. The jazz fans loved the new life he breathed into their world and the rock fans had never seen anything quite like him, but they loved it. A year of solid gigging bore fruit when renowned UK broadcaster Michael Parkinson asked Jamie to perform on his primetime TV chat show. Thus ensued an old fashioned major label bidding war, with Jamie finally being wooed to Universal by the promise of working with thirty three time Grammy nominated Tommy LiPuma and Verve Records in the US. 2003 was a blur. The first album under the Universal deal was recorded with producer Stewart Levine at the helm.

Sessions were squeezed in between a summer of jazz and rock and pop festivals, a three week residency at the legendary Oak Room in The Algonguin Hotel, the BBC Jazz Awards, at which Jamie won The Rising Star Award, a private performance for Her Majesty The Queen to celebrate her 50 years on the throne and the filming of ITV’s flagship arts broadcast the South Bank Show, an honour normally bestowed on artists after they have reached legendary status. Twentysomething, with All At Sea as lead single, was released across Europe. Jamie toured the UK again with a young Amy Winehouse as the opening act. Twenty two national TV shows later and the album had sold a million copies by Christmas. The pace of 2004 was no slower. The first of four US tours that year kicked off in January, the bitter cold only punctuated by a Vanity Fair photoshoot with Bruce Weber in the ocean near his Miami beachfront home, a performance with Stevie Wonder at NAMM and a takeover of SxSW which included a showstopping performance with N*E*R*D, all before the LP was released in the US in March.

The Twentysomething album went on to sell three million copies, and achieved eleven platinum, eleven gold and two silver sales awards. Multiple nominations and a performance at The Brit Awards took him back to the UK, as did the West End debut of When Harry Met Sally, completely re-scored by Jamie and brother, Ben. Jamie’s headline set at Glastonbury Festival was broadcast live on BBC TV, a breakthrough moment as the wider television audience finally got to see Jamie the pro entertainer in full flight. A punishing promotional schedule pulled him to all four corners of the Earth, even to a remote studio in New Zealand where he recorded the lead single from the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Such a smash record demanded a speedy follow up, and with Stewart Levine twiddling the knobs again, Catching Tales was recorded and released. Via Pharrell Williams Jamie had got to know celebrated hip hop DJ and Gorillaz member Dan Nakamura (aka Dan The Automator) who also contributed tracks. This time promotion for the record was built around doing what Jamie likes best, performing on stage - an eighteen month tour that took in forty countries.

Highlights included his first shows at Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, a MusiCares tribute to Brian Wilson, the TED convention, and the day when Jamie met EDM DJ aristocracy Pete Tong at Buckingham Palace. Pete professed to be a huge fan and invited Jamie to perform live at sunset on the beach in Ibiza to celebrate 10 years of BBC Radio 1’s coverage from the dance world’s favourite island. A great example of Jamie’s natural ability to smudge musical boundaries and mess with peoples perceptions. Jamie took that challenge even further by partnering with Underworld member and DJ Darren Emerson to front an improvised piano house spectacular at Sónar, Barcelona’s hugely influential electronic and advanced music festival. Catching Tales went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award. Amongst the crazy touring schedule Jamie managed to record his first tracks for Disney, a collaboration with Rufus Wainwright and Danny Elfman that saw Jamie sing the voice of Frankie the Frog in the movie Meet The Robinsons. More poignantly Jamie also recorded the soundtrack to the heartbreaking John Cusack movie Grace Is Gone. The song, written by Clint Eastwood and Carole Bayer Sagar was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the award for best song at the Satellite Awards.

More importantly, the alliance put Jamie and Clint together and was the start of a great friendship. Later that year Clint asked Jamie to contribute to the score and write the theme tune for his acting swan song Gran Torino. A huge success, the song received another Grammy nomination and brought a new audience to Jamie’s work, and it remains an emotional mainstay of his captivating live sets. After his first break in over six years, Jamie headed to LA to record his next project. Settling into a house in Laurel Canyon with his wife to be Sophie Dahl, Jamie eschewed his previous preferred ‘one take’ recording process for a more considered approach. Jamie’s creative partner in crime this time was multiple Grammy nominated Greg Wells. The former jazz student and big band drummer had produced tracks for OneRepublic, Adele, Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry and Kid Cudi on his way to selling over a hundred million albums. Jamie and he beavoured away at a host of LA studios, including the famous Sunset Sound Studios to produce Jamie’s most refined album to date, The Pursuit. Music Week said of the record: "The Cole Porter cover at the start won't surprise you, but the house track at the end just might.

Cullum's fifth album does justice to his musical influences: from the Portishead-tinged 'If I Ruled The World' to the wonky groove of 'We Run Things', it's bold, experimental and the best thing Cullum's done”. The artwork for the album and the much admired video for his cover of Rihanna's Don’t Stop The Music feature a supercool James Bond style scenario of exploding pianos. Around this time, in addition to the usual promotional and live work which earned him the Best Concert gong at the German LEA awards, Jamie was asked to open the Cannes Film Festival with a performance of his mashup of New York New York and Empire State of Mind to honour Robert De Niro. Cullum's love of metal was rekindled when Harry Shearer asked him to join Spinal Tap on the main stage of Glastonbury before 80,000 fans and Jamie marked the 70th anniversary of Britain's longest running radio show by appearing on the first ever live edition of Desert Island Discs. Jamie teamed up with Dutch EDM DJ Sander Kleinenberg to record house tunes together and also played live with Hugh Laurie and with Lang Lang.

Sky TV asked Jamie to be a judge on their top rated talent show ‘Must Be The Music’ and Jamie was invited to host his own weekly radio show on BBC Radio 2, Britain's most popular radio station. Jamie’s show has gone from strength to strength, featuring live music and guest interviews with talent across the jazz genre. Guests have included Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall and Dave Brubeck alongside surprises such as Clint Eastwood, Rolling Stone Charlie Watts, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Sir Paul McCartney. The show is now syndicated around the world and has won some of the biggest accolades in radio. The BBC have also asked Jamie to front their strand for up and coming talent, BBC Introducing, for which he will host a variety of activities in 2015. Ten years on from his first major recording contract, Jamie and Universal entered into a new deal that moved his label base to the iconic Island Records, historic home of U2, Bob Marley and Grace Jones and current label of Mumford & Sons, Disclosure and Florence and the Machine. His artistic freedom guaranteed, Jamie created his most mainstream song based album yet, 'Momentum'.

Produced by Jim Abbiss, known mostly for his work with the Arctic Monkeys and Adele with extra production by Dan the Automator and Ben Lamdin. A tie up with San Miguel beer in Spain which gave the record it's first number one single in the country with Everything You Didn’t Do. The Momentum album was quickly followed by a record initially recorded just for the fun. After the more mainstream recording sessions of Momentum, Jamie felt he had a jazz itch to scratch. Three studio days later, and the session masters of what would become Interlude were done. A passion project, the tracks were recorded, with a big band, in one room in one take. A jazz album through and through, the choice of tunes was very much influenced by his radio show. LP Producer Benedic Lamdin (also know as Nostalgia 77) was a previous guest on the show, and the two duets on the record are with singers for whom Jamie's show was a springboard mainstream success - Blue Note’s Gregory Porter and Sony’s Laura Mvula.

To launch the album, Jamie played some of the most iconic jazz clubs in the world, such as The Blue Note in New York and London’s Ronnie Scotts, squeezing his 12 piece big band onto the tiny club stages. Quite a feat, but worth it for the lucky fans who managed to get a ticket. At the other end of the live scale, these intimate shows and promo for the record have been interspersed with US arena shows with Billy Joel. It is Jamie’s first experience opening for another artist, and the audiences at Madison Square Garden and beyond have been generous in showing their love for the young British piano man. Alongside his songwriting ability, flair as a performer, and natural aptitude as a broadcaster, Jamie has taken his long term love of photography a step further by teaming up with Leica cameras to produce all the shots for Interlude’s deluxe artwork which can be been on display at Leica’s galleries in Germany and London as well as in the booklet for the album itself. The musician has also turned magazine publisher.

Inspired by Dave Eggars’ Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterley Concern, Jamie created The 88, ‘an occasional magazine for the adventurous thinker’ the heavyweight journal is a collection of words and pictures curated by Jamie, featuring contributions from his friends. Sophie Dahl confirms she is pregnant with her and Jamie's Cullum's second child Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum confirm new baby on the way November 02, 2012 by hellomagazine.com Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum have announced they are expecting a second child together after showing off her growing baby bump at the Harper's Bazaar Woman Of The Year Awards Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum have announced they are expecting their second child together. The couple stepped out together on Wednesday night to attend a fashion awards show, where Sophie showed off her growing bump. The pair's outing came despite Jamie once revealing they prefer to avoid glamorous parties. He has said previously: "I live an extremely unglamorous lifestyle. I choose to hang out with my friends who aren't in that world and I choose to go to gigs and to the pub and play football. "To be honest I'm a geek and so is Sophie.

We're just two people who met and swiftly fell totally in love. That's the end of the story." The couple's new arrival will be a sibling to their daughter Lyra, who was born in March last year. A spokesman for the couple said at the time: "Musician Jamie Cullum and his wife, the author and presenter Sophie Dahl, have become parents. Their daughter Lyra was born on March 2. They are over the moon." Sophie and Jamie married in a fairytale winter wedding in the New Forest in 2010. The model and her mutied the knot in front of close friends and family at the Lime Wood Hotel, near Lyndhurst. Having hired out all of the 29 bedrooms at the picturesque country house location for their guests, the couple - who met at charity event in 2008 - were united in a civil ceremony. "It was a very beautiful occasion for close family and friends," the bride's godmother said of the happy event.

"Sophie looked absolutely fantastic." Sophie – who is the granddaughter of children's author Roald Dahl – has taken a break from her modelling career over the last few years and is currently concentrating on her BBC2 cookery programme, although in July she became the face of Aubin & Wills' new autumn campaign. The former model joins a wave of famous women who are adding to their brood. Coleen Rooney also recently announced she is expecting her second child with husband Wayne Rooney. The TV presenter revealed the news on Twitter, telling her 840,000 followers that the baby is due in May. The couple, who married in a lavish ceremony in June 2008 when they were both aged 22, already have a son, Kai, who was born in November 2009. The brunette beauty tweeted: "A few people guessed, so news is out ha!! Me Wayne and Kai are thrilled that we are expecting a new addition to our family around May time x." Coleen followed the message with a second one, saying: "It's still only early but bursting with excitement!

Also wanted the news to come from us, before anyone else!." Jamie Cullum | New Music And Songs | Jamie Cullum About Jamie Cullum What’s that saying about the pram in the hallway being the enemy of creativity? Or, at least, a trip-hazard? Jamie Cullum is having none of that. When his wife gave birth to their daughter in early 2011, the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist was, naturally, overwhelmed. He and Sophie Dahl, the writer and model, had married the previous year. Their young family was already blooming. How could he not be inspired? Cullum had previously filled his life with performing, recording and writing. While studying English and Film at Reading University, he made his debut album, Heard It All Before. Post-graduation and in the wake of the release of the self-financed Pointless Nostalgic (2001), he’d spent most of his twenties travelling and touring and collaborating, first ripping up the jazz rulebook, then later following his muse wherever it took him.

That meant collaborations with everyone from Pharrell Williams to Los Angeles production maestro Greg Wells, and genius reimaginings of tracks by Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Buckley, as well as of jazz standards aplenty. It meant working non-stop for seven years as he promoted major label debut Twentysomething (2004) then the follow-up Catching Tales (2005). Then with 2009's The Pursuit, that all-consuming musical passion meant touring the world tirelessly, winning over global corner after global corner, notably America and multiple geographical nooks and crannies therein (“good evening Birmingham, Alabama!”). Life was music, life was rich, life was good. Enter, happily, brilliantly, fatherhood. “Suddenly, I had a lot less time!” Cullum, smiles. “So the feature of this new record that persisted throughout the making of it was: not thinking.” This, of course, doesn’t equate with “not caring”. “I didn’t think about what was expected of me, what I should do, what my fans were going for. I had a studio – well, a room at home. I had instruments set up. And I just went in there almost entirely on my own.

I would sit behind unfamiliar instruments – like the drums – and just start writing. I wrote two songs making a beat on my phone. I wrote a song on the ukelele. It was the things that were at hand rather than painstakingly tracking down the right kit and players that I needed to do that particular jazz song… “It was very much finding that hour that I had spare, and just getting on with it… And,” he says with a slightly alarmed look, “I’m only starting to worry about it now!” This, of course, is that point in the biography where we’re meant to say, “he needn’t have worried…” Well, ah, seriously, that is kinda the case. Jamie Cullum’s sixth album is the sound of a man both at peace with himself and in playful, creative battle with his inspirations. For the first time he’s recorded with his live band; for the first time he’s written most of the songs himself, with the occasional help of his brother Ben. And never before has he used, in the case of many of the songs, the original easy-going, DIY home demos as the blueprint for the finished articles.

For a while iPhone apps and cassette recorders were his go-to “instruments”. It’s also, probably, the first Cullum album that was largely penned while the artist was in his pyjamas. This new album is called Momentum with good reason: it’s the pop-filled sound of on artist on a creative role, bursting with ideas and inspirations, and allowed full creative reign by his new label, Island. "After I moved label, I did wonder whether I should just go in and cut an album of jazz standards - in some ways what the wider world expects of me." he reflects. "But it just felt like the wrong time to do that. I've always acted on instinct and my gut told me to focus more on my songs this time around." And Sophie said to me, ‘go in this room that you’ve set up and have fun. And don’t think about sweating your writing at this stage. Why do that? Just go and have fun.’ So I literally did,” he grins. Out in their rural home, Cullum - in all the right ways - let himself go.

“And fun for me is going in there and beating shit out of the drums for an hour.” Appropriately, Momentum begins with the thumping beat of The Same Things. Cullum acknowledges that the song is a declaration of intent. “It falls between my love of New Orleans jazz and Beyoncé, with a screaming organ solo in the middle. The chaos and fuzz of a beat-up transistor organ seems more appropriate at the moment than a tender piano solo!" he says, adding that the funk-filled party vibes of Anyway – produced by Lily Allen collaborators Future Cut – was written in two speedy hours and features more rootling swagger of Farfisa “The moments of keyboard soloing are all raucous and juke-joint, like I heard in the kind of places I encountered in the American south on tour – that more visceral blues and New Orleans end of jazz.” Much closer to home is a song like Sad Sad World. It began life on a train journey into London, with the electronic beat and part of the keyboards being completed before he pulled into Marylebone Station.

He describes the song “as the beating heart of the album” – its reflective, melancholy-tinged lyric in fact “makes me very happy when I hear it ’cause it reveals a new level of understanding of myself and the people around me." At the other end of the vibes spectrum is When I Get Famous. It was recorded with big band zip, party-on clamour and big, louche, echoey vocals from Cullum in the London studio of cult young jazz producer and vinyl champion Nostalgia 77. “He’s so punk in the way he does it,” nods Cullum approvingly. In an album bristling with pop songs, picking the first single was always going to be hard. The inspired rerub of Cole Porter’s Love For Sale has already been released as a teaser. It incorporates a sample from Roots Manuva’s Witness (1 Hope) (“I always put that tune on my compilations”), a rap from the man himself, and live production from San Francisco’s Dan The Automator. That spirit of adventure and brio is also evident in Everything You Didn’t Do and Edge Of Something.

The infectious, singalong former was initially sketched out with Cullum sitting behind his drumkit; lyrically the latter, with pounding piano and sweeping strings, is about “learning not to run away from things that really mean something”. With Momentum – and by channelling momentum – Jamie Cullum is enjoying a newfound musical freedom. Although, he acknowledges, “it is kind of a backwards musical freedom. In some ways I started out in a lot of people’s eyes playing pure jazz with an acoustic jazz quartet – so I was free of the shackles of the commercial music industry. But even back then I had strong desires to be more of a writer and make the production bigger and do things that were very contemporary. “But because I never felt like I was a pop star, or I was anything like the people I saw on television, I’ve never really purely been able to go down that route…” Doing the BBC radio programme has also served to open him up. He’s sat with Dave Brubeck and Wynton Marsalis and Ahmad Jamal, rapt as they discuss their craft.

“It just makes you realise how important it is to focus on exactly what you want to do when you’re an artist.” It’s taken thoroughly modest, totally grounded Jamie Cullum a while to come round to the idea of thinking of himself as an artist. To be honest, he still squirms at the idea now, even if just the inspired covers he tackled during the sessions for Momentum – a James Blake-inspired tilt at Anthony Newley’s Pure Imagination (from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory), and a bold jazz rendering of Björk’s Unison – offer evidence aplenty of Cullum’s free-thinking artistry. “I’ve always said, oh I just like to play music, I like jamming, and whatever comes out is the best… And that’s still the truth. But I‘ve started to think of myself now in terms of someone who creates stuff for a living. And I had to wait for that to come to me. So being able to distil something down to the simple hook of Everything You Didn’t Do or Edge Of Something or Sad Sad World – well, it’s actually been hard for me to come around to that more simple and direct way forward. But that’s exactly where I’m at right now.

And it feels entirely correct and exciting.” Like he said, he’s on a roll. He has momentum. And he won’t be stopping anytime soon – backed by his road-hardened band of brothers, Cullum can’t wait to perform these new songs around the world. Inspired by the creative breadth of projects he was a part of since Catching Tales, and having liberated himself from the usual recording constraints of schedule, equipment and instruments when he built his own aptly-named Terrified Studios in London (a nod to his admitted intimidation in the face of technology), Cullum approached The Pursuit with a loose, experimental atmosphere that was only hinted at in his earlier albums. With recordings in hand from his new studio and his home kitchen (where he has dozens of keyboards so he can write & record when finding inspiration from two of his other great passions – cooking and eating), Cullum moved the project to Los Angeles for three months, recording the bulk of the album with veteran producer/musician Greg Wells (whose extensive resume includes work with Katy Perry, One Republic, Mika and Rufus Wainwright) and a stellar assortment of musicians, including members of Beck's band and the horn section that played on Michael Jackson's Thriller.

"It was intentional to work with a new producer and new musicians, and to record in a city that I didn't know that well," Cullum states. "I needed to frighten myself. Being in unfamiliar territory forced me to do things differently, and to operate on a hyper-sensitive, hyper-alert level. Having turned 30, I just felt like I needed to do something different." Cullum's risk-taking approach to the recording sessions paid off, fostering an anything-goes vibe that yielded some of the most inventive arrangements and compelling performances of his career. "It was a very positive atmosphere," says Cullum, who plays piano, guitar, bass and organ on the album. "A lot of the tracks were just me and Greg Wells and an engineer. That continued to give it a homemade feel, and gave us the feeling that we could try anything." Cullum's willingness to defy convention has served him well during his lifelong pursuit of musical fulfillment.

He began playing piano and guitar at the age of eight; in his mid teens, Cullum was in & out of rock bands playing guitar, drums and piano; he was also the drummer in a hip-hop combo, eventually finding his way back to jazz through the samples used in his favorite hip-hop recordings; and Cullum spent the end of his teen years living in Paris, where he honed his skills performing in local jazz clubs before going on to become the biggest-selling British jazz artist of all time. Cullum has won an enviable reputation as a magnetic live performer, playing freewheeling concerts that emphasize spontaneity and improvisation—and which rarely employ a set list. The restless artistic spirit that animates The Pursuit is encapsulated by the album's title, which was inspired by Nancy Mitford's classic novel The Pursuit of Love. "It's my fiancé’s favorite book, and the line in 'Love Ain't Gonna Let You Down' that says 'The pursuit of love consumes us all' is a reference to that," Cullum explains. "The reason I made it the album title was that I've come to realize that life is one long pursuit.

Being a musician is not about any obvious goal; it's about appreciating the journey as opposed to the destination. "The artists I most admire," Cullum concludes, "are people like Miles Davis and Tom Waits, who make all kinds of different records, and change and evolve over the years, but still remain themselves. That's what I aspire to. I'm only about five per cent of the way there, but I've got time." Jamie Cullum - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS Jamie Cullum was born on August 20, 1979 in Rochford, Essex, England. He has been married to Sophie Dahl since January 9, 2010. They have two children.

See full bio » Born: a list of 46 people created 20 Nov 2011 a list of 19 people created 13 Oct 2012 a list of 376 people created 14 Jul 2013 a list of 50 people created 13 Aug 2014 a list of 27 people created 28 Aug 2015 Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Jamie Cullum's work have you seen? User Polls Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 2 nominations. See more awards » Known For - Week 5: The Skate-Off (2014) ... (performer: "Don't Stop the Music" - uncredited) 2013 Torres y Reyes (TV Series) (performer: "The Same Thing") El número uno (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode, 2013) (writer - 1 episode, 2013) - Episode #2.4 (2013) ...

(performer: "Edge of Something") / (writer: "Edge of Something") 2013 The Mark of Beauty (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Watashi no Fujisan (2013) ... (performer: "I Could Have Danced All Night") 2013 ¡Atención obras! (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #1.11 (2013) ... (performer: "You're Not the Only One") 2013 Divendres (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #4.167 (2013) ... (performer: "Everything You Didn't Do") 2013 Sunday Brunch (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #1.61 (2013) ... (performer: "The Same Things") 2012 Gent de paraula (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #3.11 (2012) ...

(performer: "Everything You Didn't Do") 2012 The Eurovision Song Contest (TV Special) (writer: "Standing Still") 2010 Harald Schmidt (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #5.5 (2010) ... (performer: "Don't Stop the Music") 2010 The Bachelorette (TV Series) (1 episode) - Episode #6.2 (2010) ... ("Love Ain't Gonna Let You Down", uncredited) Verbotene Liebe (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode, 2010) (writer - 1 episode, 2010) - Episode #1.3540 (2010) ... (performer: "21st century kid") / (writer: "21st century kid") Jamie Cullum – review | Music | The Guardian Jamie Cullum – review 4 / 5 stars Sage, Gateshead Already an all-action entertainer and consummate musician, Jamie Callum has added a more experimental side to his repertoire Darker moods … Jamie Cullum.

Photograph: Tommy Jackson/Redferns via Getty Images Sunday 20 October 2013 10.57 EDT First published on Sunday 20 October 2013 10.57 EDT Share on Messenger Close At 34, with 15 years of gigs behind him, Jamie Cullum still looks ridiculously youthful – not unlike a more cherubic Pete Doherty, if the Babyshambles singer had swapped heroin for Cullum's wife Sophie Dahl's cooking . "It's the jeans," Cullum insists, attributing his fresh-faced looks to his sensitive area-crushing trousers. Moments later, he is standing on his piano, fooling the crowd with fake mistakes ("Gotcha!") and inviting everybody to become part of a painful-sounding choir he calls the "castrata". Later, he runs around the entire venue, serenading startled punters. Cullum is every bit the all-action entertainer and consummate musician, but also very different to the covers-toting figure who emerged in 1999 to become the biggest-selling British jazz artist ever. More experimental, his show now rollercoasts through piano-pounding rock and darker moods.

Most songs are his own, from recent album Momentum , and rather good. When I Get Famous ("an anthem for our times") is about a boy who can't get girls at school, so plays the piano for renown. "You think it was me, don't you?" he quips. "I was the school stud. Why are you laughing?" His interpretative skills remain impressive. He takes Anthony Newley's magical Pure Imagination somewhere new – bleak and pensive. Rihanna's Don't Stop the Music undergoes a similar metamorphosis from a sassy stomper into a smouldering adventure of secret glances and illicit sensuality. It's all so meticulously just-so – even his tossed jacket lands perfectly on a mic stand – that he risks coming over as all flash and no feeling. But towards the end it becomes clear what it means to him: "We'll never forget this," he tells the crowd as Gateshead jumps in ecstatic unison, and a grinning father holds his little girl up to receive the Cullum kiss. • Did you catch this gig – or any other recently?

Tell us about it using #Iwasthere • This article was amended on 24 October 2013 to correct the spelling of Anthony Newley's name from Antony, and also to correct the name of the song Pure Imagination, from Private Imagination. Jamie Cullum Bio | Jamie Cullum Career | MTV Jazz What’s that saying about the pram in the hallway being the enemy of creativity? Or, at least, a trip-hazard? Jamie Cullum is having none of that. When his wife gave birth to their daughter in early 2011, the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist was, naturally, overwhelmed. He and Sophie Dahl, the writer and model, had married the previous year. Their young family was already blooming. How could he not be inspired? Cullum had previously filled his life with performing, recording and writing. While studying English and Film at Reading University, he made his debut album, Heard It All Before.

Post-graduation and in the wake of the release of the self-financed Pointless Nostalgic (2001), he’d spent most of his twenties travelling and touring and collaborating, first ripping up the jazz rulebook, then later following his muse wherever it took him. That meant collaborations with everyone from Pharrell Williams to Los Angeles production maestro Greg Wells, and genius reimaginings of tracks by Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Buckley, as well as of jazz standards aplenty. It meant working non-stop for seven years as he promoted major label debut Twentysomething (2004) then the follow-up Catching Tales (2005). Then with 2009's The Pursuit, that all-consuming musical passion meant touring the world tirelessly, winning over global corner after global corner, notably America and multiple geographical nooks and crannies therein (“good evening Birmingham, Alabama!”). Life was music, life was rich, life was good. Enter, happily, brilliantly, fatherhood. “Suddenly, I had a lot less time!” Cullum, smiles.

“So the feature of this new record that persisted throughout the making of it was: not thinking.” This, of course, doesn’t equate with “not caring”. “I didn’t think about what was expected of me, what I should do, what my fans were going for. I had a studio – well, a room at home. I had instruments set up. And I just went in there almost entirely on my own. I would sit behind unfamiliar instruments – like the drums – and just start writing. I wrote two songs making a beat on my phone. I wrote a song on the ukelele. It was the things that were at hand rather than painstakingly tracking down the right kit and players that I needed to do that particular jazz song… “It was very much finding that hour that I had spare, and just getting on with it… And,” he says with a slightly alarmed look, “I’m only starting to worry about it now!” This, of course, is that point in the biography where we’re meant to say, “he needn’t have worried…” Well, ah, seriously, that is kinda the case.

Jamie Cullum’s sixth album is the sound of a man both at peace with himself and in playful, creative battle with his inspirations. For the first time he’s recorded with his live band; for the first time he’s written most of the songs himself, with the occasional help of his brother Ben. And never before has he used, in the case of many of the songs, the original easy-going, DIY home demos as the blueprint for the finished articles. For a while iPhone apps and cassette recorders were his go-to “instruments”. It’s also, probably, the first Cullum album that was largely penned while the artist was in his pyjamas. This new album is called Momentum with good reason: it’s the pop-filled sound of on artist on a creative role, bursting with ideas and inspirations, and allowed full creative reign by his new label, Island. "After I moved label, I did wonder whether I should just go in and cut an album of jazz standards - in some ways what the wider world expects of me." he reflects. "But it just felt like the wrong time to do that.

I've always acted on instinct and my gut told me to focus more on my songs this time around." And Sophie said to me, ‘go in this room that you’ve set up and have fun. And don’t think about sweating your writing at this stage. Why do that? Just go and have fun.’ So I literally did,” he grins. Out in their rural home, Cullum - in all the right ways - let himself go. “And fun for me is going in there and beating shit out of the drums for an hour.” Appropriately, Momentum begins with the thumping beat of The Same Things. Cullum acknowledges that the song is a declaration of intent. “It falls between my love of New Orleans jazz and Beyoncé, with a screaming organ solo in the middle.

The chaos and fuzz of a beat-up transistor organ seems more appropriate at the moment than a tender piano solo!" he says, adding that the funk-filled party vibes of Anyway – produced by Lily Allen collaborators Future Cut – was written in two speedy hours and features more rootling swagger of Farfisa “The moments of keyboard soloing are all raucous and juke-joint, like I heard in the kind of places I encountered in the American south on tour – that more visceral blues and New Orleans end of jazz.” Much closer to home is a song like Sad Sad World. It began life on a train journey into London, with the electronic beat and part of the keyboards being completed before he pulled into Marylebone Station. He describes the song “as the beating heart of the album” – its reflective, melancholy-tinged lyric in fact “makes me very happy when I hear it ’cause it reveals a new level of understanding of myself and the people around me." At the other end of the vibes spectrum is When I Get Famous.

It was recorded with big band zip, party-on clamour and big, louche, echoey vocals from Cullum in the London studio of cult young jazz producer and vinyl champion Nostalgia 77. “He’s so punk in the way he does it,” nods Cullum approvingly. In an album bristling with pop songs, picking the first single was always going to be hard. The inspired rerub of Cole Porter’s Love For Sale has already been released as a teaser. It incorporates a sample from Roots Manuva’s Witness (1 Hope) (“I always put that tune on my compilations”), a rap from the man himself, and live production from San Francisco’s Dan The Automator. That spirit of adventure and brio is also evident in Everything You Didn’t Do and Edge Of Something. The infectious, singalong former was initially sketched out with Cullum sitting behind his drumkit; lyrically the latter, with pounding piano and sweeping strings, is about “learning not to run away from things that really mean something”. With Momentum – and by channelling momentum – Jamie Cullum is enjoying a newfound musical freedom. Although, he acknowledges, “it is kind of a backwards musical freedom.

In some ways I started out in a lot of people’s eyes playing pure jazz with an acoustic jazz quartet – so I was free of the shackles of the commercial music industry. But even back then I had strong desires to be more of a writer and make the production bigger and do things that were very contemporary. “But because I never felt like I was a pop star, or I was anything like the people I saw on television, I’ve never really purely been able to go down that route…” Doing the BBC radio programme has also served to open him up. He’s sat with Dave Brubeck and Wynton Marsalis and Ahmad Jamal, rapt as they discuss their craft. “It just makes you realise how important it is to focus on exactly what you want to do when you’re an artist.” It’s taken thoroughly modest, totally grounded Jamie Cullum a while to come round to the idea of thinking of himself as an artist.

To be honest, he still squirms at the idea now, even if just the inspired covers he tackled during the sessions for Momentum – a James Blake-inspired tilt at Anthony Newley’s Pure Imagination (from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory), and a bold jazz rendering of Björk’s Unison – offer evidence aplenty of Cullum’s free-thinking artistry. “I’ve always said, oh I just like to play music, I like jamming, and whatever comes out is the best… And that’s still the truth. But I‘ve started to think of myself now in terms of someone who creates stuff for a living. And I had to wait for that to come to me. So being able to distil something down to the simple hook of Everything You Didn’t Do or Edge Of Something or Sad Sad World – well, it’s actually been hard for me to come around to that more simple and direct way forward. But that’s exactly where I’m at right now. And it feels entirely correct and exciting.” Like he said, he’s on a roll. He has momentum.

And he won’t be stopping anytime soon – backed by his road-hardened band of brothers, Cullum can’t wait to perform these new songs around the world. Inspired by the creative breadth of projects he was a part of since Catching Tales, and having liberated himself from the usual recording constraints of schedule, equipment and instruments when he built his own aptly-named Terrified Studios in London (a nod to his admitted intimidation in the face of technology), Cullum approached The Pursuit with a loose, experimental atmosphere that was only hinted at in his earlier albums. With recordings in hand from his new studio and his home kitchen (where he has dozens of keyboards so he can write & record when finding inspiration from two of his other great passions – cooking and eating), Cullum moved the project to Los Angeles for three months, recording the bulk of the album with veteran producer/musician Greg Wells (whose extensive resume includes work with Katy Perry, One Republic, Mika and Rufus Wainwright) and a stellar assortment of musicians, including members of Beck's band and the horn section that played on Michael Jackson's Thriller.

"It was intentional to work with a new producer and new musicians, and to record in a city that I didn't know that well," Cullum states. "I needed to frighten myself. Being in unfamiliar territory forced me to do things differently, and to operate on a hyper-sensitive, hyper-alert level. Having turned 30, I just felt like I needed to do something different." Cullum's risk-taking approach to the recording sessions paid off, fostering an anything-goes vibe that yielded some of the most inventive arrangements and compelling performances of his career. "It was a very positive atmosphere," says Cullum, who plays piano, guitar, bass and organ on the album. "A lot of the tracks were just me and Greg Wells and an engineer. That continued to give it a homemade feel, and gave us the feeling that we could try anything." Cullum's willingness to defy convention has served him well during his lifelong pursuit of musical fulfillment.

He began playing piano and guitar at the age of eight; in his mid teens, Cullum was in & out of rock bands playing guitar, drums and piano; he was also the drummer in a hip-hop combo, eventually finding his way back to jazz through the samples used in his favorite hip-hop recordings; and Cullum spent the end of his teen years living in Paris, where he honed his skills performing in local jazz clubs before going on to become the biggest-selling British jazz artist of all time. Cullum has won an enviable reputation as a magnetic live performer, playing freewheeling concerts that emphasize spontaneity and improvisation—and which rarely employ a set list. The restless artistic spirit that animates The Pursuit is encapsulated by the album's title, which was inspired by Nancy Mitford's classic novel The Pursuit of Love. "It's my fiancé’s favorite book, and the line in 'Love Ain't Gonna Let You Down' that says 'The pursuit of love consumes us all' is a reference to that," Cullum explains. "The reason I made it the album title was that I've come to realize that life is one long pursuit.

Being a musician is not about any obvious goal; it's about appreciating the journey as opposed to the destination. "The artists I most admire," Cullum concludes, "are people like Miles Davis and Tom Waits, who make all kinds of different records, and change and evolve over the years, but still remain themselves. That's what I aspire to. I'm only about five per cent of the way there, but I've got time."

Question: Who is the wife of singer Jamie Cullum?
Answer: SOPHIE DAHL